The Role of Silica Nanofluid as a Plugging Agent for Enhanced Oil Recovery – Experimental Approach

Abstract

Many enhanced oil recovery techniques have been adopted in oil production to recover as much oil as possible. However, enhanced oil recovery techniques are complex and costly. Therefore, nanofluids have been modified in the laboratory to be consistent with reservoir fluids and rocks while also being environmentally benign. This study aims to investigate the role of silica nanofluid in plugging the high permeable zones after oil is recovered from the reservoir to divert pressure to the low permeable zone for enhanced oil production from the low permeable zones. A digital gas permeameter (DGP-300-B) was used to determine the permeability of the core by injecting nitrogen gas. In addition, a DHP-100-M Digital Helium Porosimeter was used to determine bulk volume, grain volume, and grain density porosity. The experiment was conducted with different percentages of silicon dioxide nanoparticles to observe the effect of plugging in each stage. Results show that a 52% reduction in core permeability was observed when using 0.5wt.% of silica nanoparticles, a 72% reduction in core permeability when using 1wt.% of silica nanoparticles and a 94% reduction in core permeability when using 2wt.% of silica nanoparticles.